Unleashed (Mr. Black Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

one another.
    “I’m runnin’ a fuckin’ daycare,” Commander Almen murmured.
    The flight to Africa was long and uncomfortable. I glanced around at my teammates, who were spread out in the cavernous spaces of the freezing cargo hold. Some of the men were catching a nap while leaning against their rucksacks, while others laid on their bedrolls poring over mission reports. I spent most of my time memorizing the intel and studying maps of the surrounding areas. I wanted to make sure I got every piece of information loaded into my brain in the off chance something went wrong. Something I didn’t foresee happening since this was a simple extraction mission; but it never hurt to be prepared. After what seemed to take forever, the plane finally touched down in a highly clandestine military location unknown even to the commander himself.
    We gathered our gear and filed out of the plane into a wall of heat and pitch black darkness. This was the part I hated the most…the heat. It was the kind of heat that enveloped the lungs, gripping it tightly, making one battle the air for each and every breath. The kind of heat which made all of my gear seem like it was ten times heavier than it really was.
    “All right, gentlemen! Five minutes. I want everyone in the conference room for a meeting. We need to regroup,” the commander said as he motioned toward a faint building in the distance.
    I could slightly make out the general vicinity of the building, as my eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness.
    I took in a deep breath and trudged across the concrete tarmac, trailing behind the group by a few steps. Gazing up at the millions of stars in the sky, I murmured to myself, “Don’t see that in San Diego.”
    “No, you don’t,” the commander said, smacking his hand on to my back as he walked by me, preceding the team into the building.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CAPTURED
     
     
    BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ!
    My phone went off again, but this time at zero-two-thirty, as we were to meet at the airfield to catch our ride on the UH-60 Black Hawk, the Army’s best tactical transport helicopter. I had only gotten about two hours of sleep following the briefing that the commander held after the plane ride. Exhausted, I rolled off of the cot, threw on my uniform, then kicked Erik’s bunk after seeing that he had slept in. “Hey, you’re gonna be late.”
    “Oh fuck!” Erik yelled before his eyes even cracked open.
    He scrambled for his uniform as I shook my head, walking out of the door into the warm, early morning air. The usual excitement that I felt before a big operation was next to nil this morning. I almost wanted to go back into the room and lie down. This was not a feeling I was used to, and I wondered why I was so uninterested in this particular op.
    The air smells so different today .
    I made my way to the awaiting Black Hawk. Commander Almen was already impatiently waiting on the tarmac, clapping. “Congratulations, ladies, y’all made it with thirty seconds to spare. Bravo, zulu.”
    I smiled knowing that dig was probably directed toward me and my constant tardiness, as of late. The commander went on to give his usual speech, all his familiar playfulness gone as the severity of the impending danger loomed. Although it was deemed a simple mission, in reality, there were never simple missions, as all missions posed a certain amount of danger. We readied our kit, checking over our M4’s and secondary weapons one last time. But even the commander’s pep talk hadn’t garnered any additional excitement from me. I still felt that prickling feeling in the back of my mind, a feeling that had served me well in past missions.
    “Any questions or concerns, ladies?” the commander mocked. “And remember, we wanna get home in time to watch Dancing with the Stars , so let’s not get killed today.”
    “ Hooyah , sir,” the crew barked in unison, then one by one hopped onto the Black Hawk.
    The helicopter’s propellers started